


measure time by throbs of pain and the record of bitter moments

by Diamantspitzhacke (RedSoleWrites)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, I said implied/referenced suicide but NOBODY IS DEAD I PROMISE, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Imprisonment, Isolation, Pandora's Vault, Solitary Confinement, Time Skips, Toby Smith | Tubbo Angst, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), listen i have to write this quick before canon occurs and this is no longer relevant, mmm dream you wanna put tubbo in pandora's vault so bad PLEASE IT WOULD BE SO COOL, my notes for this started with "Tubbo in prison pog", no beta we die like wilbur: stabbed by our father, so here have some food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28221162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSoleWrites/pseuds/Diamantspitzhacke
Summary: Tubbo sets off for Logstedshire after Technoblade's attempted execution, looking to make sure that Tommy's doing alright.That's not what he finds.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 62
Kudos: 231





	1. The Realization

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I am writing this so quickly amid a whole week of me writing immense amounts of fic because I live in eternal fear of waiting too long to write this and then canon things happen and this is no longer anywhere near what happens.
> 
> It's happened before, I refuse to let it happen again. (ccs please give us a break it goes so fast)
> 
> But on the other hand, if this is what happens, then I'm a goddamn prophet.
> 
> We'll see how it goes.

The churning, roiling feeling of guilt and regret in his stomach pushed Tubbo forward and into the Nether portal. Heat buffeted his face instantly, harsh and humid.

After everything that had gone on with the Butcher Army earlier, he wasn’t sure if what he was doing was right. Technoblade had said he’d reformed, right? That he’d just wanted to live peacefully?

 _But he was very quick about turning to kill you,_ a voice that sounded like Quackity whispered.

 _Because you were threatening him,_ the one that reminded him of Philza replied.

Tubbo ignored them both. He didn’t know what his own thoughts on this were. He’d wanted a nation that was peaceful, that didn’t start fights and resolved them peacefully whenever possible. Yet his entire cabinet had pushed him harder and harder into picking this battle. Was this what he was supposed to do?

_God, I’m only sixteen._

At this point, he was desperate for any kind of reassurance. Comfort, a kind face, his best friend – even if Tommy didn’t consider them that close anymore. Just seeing him a little bit, knowing that he was okay in exile, would be enough for Tubbo.

He turned down the wide, arrow-marked pathway that led to Tommy’s new home, laughing a bit at the garishness and rickety nature of the paths. One was quite precarious, only a narrow log connecting it to the main hub, and a mess of single-block widths and dangerous jumps. The one Tubbo was taking, though, led to the same place, but with considerably less risk of falling into the molten orange lava beneath him.

“It’s still him,” he remarked aloud. “Tommy loves making paths. Literally, what he – he spends the majority of the time making some kind of railway or path connection system.” He laughed to himself. “He literally made them all over L’Manberg: underneath, aboveground, all of that.”

Still smiling to himself, just the thought of his best friend already lifting his spirits, Tubbo arrived at his destination. He stepped through the portal connecting this section of the Nether to Tommy’s place in the Overworld, the familiar purple portal magic tingling over his skin. A shiver ran down his spine at the sudden temperature drop.

“Awesome,” he commented. Then, taking in his surroundings, he was suddenly confused. A second portal frame with sizeable chunks missing stood next to the one he’d just exited from. “Why is there another – why is there two portals? What the hell?”

His good mood dropped away as he looked around more closely. “What the – what the hell?”

All around him, instead of the typical greenery he expected from the accounts he’d been told of Logstedshire, rain fell from a foreboding sky onto craters in the ground. They were targeted craters, too, not just simple remnants of creeper explosions. The first place he ran over to had clearly once been a house, bits of the wooden frame still scorched and standing. He placed a hand on one broad plank, half for something to ground himself on and half to keep himself standing, but it practically crumpled in on itself, staining his hand with ash and charcoal. Tubbo ignored the grime, though, far more worried about Tommy.

“Does he have a tent still? Where’s his tent?”

Tubbo couldn’t see the white canvas that Ranboo had described to him one night so long ago. The newest member of L’Manberg had told him about his visit to Tommy, about what life was like for his best friend now. He’d mentioned that Tommy stayed in a tent, while a cabin nearby had been a joint escapade between the teen and Ghostbur.

But now both were gone, as Tubbo arrived at yet another crater, no bits of tent left to salvage. Nearby, a Christmas tree burned with slow and steady flames gone unquenched by the rainfall.

Tubbo’s heart sank. “What? What’s gone on here?”

If something had happened to Tommy, if Dream had gone back on his word and let his best friend get hurt, Tubbo didn’t know what he’d do. The masked man had _promised_ that Tommy would be safe! That he’d watch over him! That Tommy would be fine!

As he sprinted back over to the remnants of the cabin, his heart pounding erratically in his chest, his breath coming in shorter and shorter pants, Tubbo spotted something that slowed his frantic run to an unsteady jog. “What has gone – what is…”

“What is this pillar?”

Just barely illuminated against the darkened sky, nothing more than an outline, was a tower that extended upwards. Tubbo’s gaze moved slowly from its base in the biggest crater, where there was nothing but hard stone that was only dampened by the downpour, up its tall, spindly length.

Taller than the charred remains of the cabin.

_Oh no, oh god._

Taller than the proud oak trees surrounding the area.

_Please, no._

Taller than the line of the horizon.

_Not Tommy, please._

Tall enough that Tubbo imagined if a person were to stand atop it, that they could touch the stormy grey rainclouds.

“What has he-?”

His franticness morphed into a slower, deadlier dread.

There was only one way to make a tower like that. A person had to build it up beneath them, climbing closer to the heavens as it grew in size. Which would then leave them stuck up there.

There were only so many ways for a person to get down from a tower like that. A bucket of water ( _but the ground is too dry for that_ ), an ender pearl ( _but Dream wouldn’t let Tommy have one of those_ ), a hay bale ( _but there aren’t any strands of wheat on the floor_ ), a bed ( _but he’d still get hurt, he wouldn’t be able to walk that off and disappear_ ), a boat ( _but Tommy didn’t know about that trick_ ).

Or they could just jump.

And a person whose entire home had been destroyed, who’d been exiled from their country and abandoned by their friends, who’d been betrayed by their own family, well.

“No. Surely not,” Tubbo reasoned, trying his best to deny the evidence in front of him, the evidence he’d seen with his own two eyes.

The rain poured down even harder, pinning his hair to his head and running in long streams down his face. Tubbo brushed all of that aside distractedly.

It was the kind of feeling that you get when watching a car crash. You know it’s coming, you know that it’s going to hurt, that it’s going to be horrific, that you’ll never be able to forget it. But you just can’t look away, like some outside force holds you in place and glues your eyelids open and turns your head directly at the point of impact.

Tubbo just couldn’t look away.

Somewhere, mixing in with the rain, a few salty tears ran down his cheeks. He couldn’t tell them apart from the rest of the water.

He stood, still as a statue, still as the pillar, and _stared_ at the evidence of what his actions had wrought.

There was a crunch of leaves behind him.

Broken out of his trance, Tubbo pivoted to face the source of the noise, but before he could, there was a sharp flash of pain to the back of his head and everything went dark.


	2. The Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tubbo wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeehaw so while this may not be canon, I've already started it so I can't go back now. nothing can stop me! except for my own indecision, tbh. but shhhh it's fineee

The throbbing of his head was what drew Tubbo from unconsciousness, the dull ache pounding like a heartbeat of its own. He groaned, rubbing at the painful spot and sitting up. A small jolt of alarm fully woke him up when he felt something wet there. In the impenetrable darkness that surrounded him, though, Tubbo couldn’t see his hand, not even when he held it directly in front of his face. A tentative lick, though, revealed the telltale iron taste of blood. _That’s not a good sign._

Tubbo tried looking around to catch his bearings, but he couldn’t see a thing. Wherever he was, it was pitch-black and impossible to see. He felt around the surface he was sitting on, feeling an edge on one side and a wall on another. Some sort of protrusion from the wall, then?

Cautiously, he swung his legs around to the edge. After a bit of feeling around, his toes touched a cold floor.

_Wait, where are my shoes?_

That was an issue for later, though, since he still couldn’t see a thing. Tubbo was running blind. And, as he scrounged around his pockets only to come up empty, he was also left without any resources. _Just great. Fantastic, really._

He stood up, though not without struggle as his legs shook beneath him, and slowly began tracing the perimeter of the room. Tubbo kept one hand glued to the wall, sliding it across the glossy lumps of – _obsidian?_ – for balance, support, and guidance. His walk quickly turned into more of a shuffle as he panted, overcome with exhaustion that he really shouldn’t feel from such a short amount of activity. He was no Technoblade or Dream, but his time in the wars and work on massive projects certainly had left him in better shape than this.

Tubbo, upon tripping over the overhang he’d woken up on and faceplanting back onto it with a muffled _oof_ , pounded his fist into the solid wall. The dull _thud_ that it evoked confirmed another fear of his: the wall was thick and solid, no hollow bits to be heard.

“This certainly seems a bit familiar,” Tubbo huffed grimly to himself. The words echoed back around the small room, blending over each other and repeating like a mockery of his situation. He raked his hands through his hair, pulling on the strands in an effort to stave off his panic.

Tubbo had not been a fan of small spaces since two months ago.

The crushing, all-encompassing dark wasn’t helping.

A low rumbling distracted him from his spiraling thoughts. As Tubbo looked in the direction he heard it coming from, he suddenly had to shield his eyes from the streaks of cold white light spilling in.

One whole wall of his cell was pulling itself into the ceiling.

Tubbo stared, blinking rapidly. Those shoes were familiar, as were the pants, and once the door had retreated far enough for him to see the bright green hoodie, Tubbo knew without a doubt who stood before him.

“Uh, hello Dream.”

“Tubbo,” the masked man replied curtly, waiting for the door to finish disappearing before casually stepping into the room.

Fidgeting with the hem of his shirt awkwardly, Tubbo coughed. “So, um, do you know what’s going on here? Like, I just woke up here and I have…no idea what’s going on, I’ll be honest.”

The two simple dots on the mask bored into Tubbo unnervingly. Never moving, never shifting, he felt disturbingly _seen_. Tubbo shuddered involuntarily. “Dream?”

“Oh, Tubbo.”

“Dream?”

“You _can’t_ be this naïve, Tubbo.”

_Oh, that’s very not good._

“Dream, please, can you explain?”

“Tubbo, Tubbo, Tubbo,” Dream chided. “If you only hadn’t gone and poked your nose where it didn’t belong, if you’d only stayed in your lane, if you only had _listened_ to me, then we wouldn’t be in this situation, now would we?”

“ _Dream?_ ” Tubbo repeated uselessly, his ability to form coherent sentences mysteriously missing.

The warrior spread his arms in a grandiose gesture, a welcome of sorts. Though his mask remained expressionless, Tubbo could easily imagine the vindictive grin hiding behind it. “Welcome to Pandora’s Vault, Tubbo.”

_Wait. That name’s familiar. Where have I-?”_

“A little joint venture between myself and Sam. You know Sam, don’t you? The man’s a genius with machinery, I’m sure you’re aware. He and I came up with this beauty.” Dream patted the wall appreciatively. “Now, Pandora’s Vault, my pet project, serves one very simple, very effective purpose.”

He turned to Tubbo, waiting for a moment. Tubbo, unsure of what he was being prompted to do, stayed silent. Dream’s shoulders slumped.

“ _That purpose_ , since I’m sure you’re very curious, is to _keep you in_.”

The low, dangerous tone Dream spoke with sent shivers down Tubbo’s spine, a pit of dread forming in his stomach. “W-what?”

“I have plans for these lands, Tubbo!” Dream announced. “Big plans, important plans! And, well,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, leaning to speak directly into Tubbo’s ear, “I can’t have little _pawns_ like you messing them up. Think of it as insurance of a sort. You stay in here, I get somebody else to run L’Manberg in your place. Someone who will follow along with what I say. You did such a good job with that when I asked you to exile Tommy. But I couldn’t have you kill Techno! So our little contract is being altered.”

“Dream – what-”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Dream patted Tubbo’s cheek, stepping back as he did so. “L’Manberg will be safe and sound, as promised. Your ‘friends’ there? So long as they stay in line, they’ll be safe too.”

The feeling of relief was like a bittersweet drug to Tubbo, flowing through his veins in a rush of assuaged fear. His friends, his nation would be okay. Still, there was something else he needed to know.

“And me?”

The tilt of Dream’s head told Tubbo that he’d disappointed the man in some way. “Oh, Tubbo, I would’ve thought that was obvious.”

And, doing something Tubbo had never seen before, had never once heard rumors of, Dream reached around to the back of his head and unclasped his mask. The simple piece of curved porcelain slid from his face. It wasn’t as slow or dramatic as Tubbo had envisioned; there was no faint hiss of releasing mechanisms or sick squelch of flesh being pulled away. The face hidden behind it, finally revealed, was plain and unassuming. If Tubbo had passed him in a crowd, he’d have no idea that this was the man who’d instigated wars and held the server in an iron grip.

Under a mop of blonde hair, Dream’s face was fair. Faint imprints of freckles dotted their way across his cheeks and nose, a few creeping up towards his forehead. His face was surprisingly angular, considering the circular mask he wore all the time. A harsh square jaw, a straight and narrow nose, vague outlines of cheekbones. Moss green eyes sat directly under where the two black dots on his mask normally were, clear and confident. There were no bags under his eyes, not like the deep ones Tubbo sported. Nor were there any deep scars like Tubbo’s burns; the only visible sign of a fighter on his face, besides the self-assurance, was a thin white scar stretching across Dream’s nose.

If this were any other situation, Tubbo might have called him handsome, in that American, boy-next-door sort of way. But this wasn’t any other situation. Tubbo wasn’t stupid. Despite all the naivete he was known for, he had some measure of understanding of how the world worked.

Tubbo knew that, by showing his face, Dream was showing off just how trapped Tubbo was. He’d never shown his face; nobody had ever even hinted that they’d seen it. He let Tubbo see it because Tubbo wouldn’t be able to share his knowledge with anybody. He was stuck here, in this ‘Pandora’s Vault,’ for the rest of his natural life. Dream would see to it.

Still, his heart held out hope. “Surely someone will notice, Dream. They know me! I’m the President, for god’s sake! This isn’t going to be some situation where I just get disappeared and nobody can tell.”

“Oh, they’ll be able to tell, Tubbo,” Dream shrugged nonchalantly. “But will they care enough to come get you?”

“What?”

“Tubbo, they all think you’re the next Schlatt. And I think they subconsciously know you’re the next Wilbur, too. You’re driving your nation into the ground. I’m doing them a favor with this, really.” Dream started pacing back and forth within the small bounds of the cell. “None of them are going to bother looking for you. I mean, really, who would want to? With how cold and heartless you’ve proved yourself to be?”

“But that’s who they wanted me to be! They all told me to get over my emotions, to think logically! This is what they forced me to be!” Tubbo retorted desperately. He refused to believe this. They were his friends! Sure, they weren’t exactly the happiest with him at the moment, but they were still friends! They wouldn’t leave him to rot, not when they’d all seen how _hard_ he’d been trying to keep L’Manberg safe. He’d followed along with their plan to get revenge on Techno, and he’d listened to them when they’d shared their original plan to prevent Tommy’s exile. He might not have chosen to follow it in the end – the whole reason they were mad at him in the first place – but that was his right and duty as President. He was just doing his job and doing it like they’d told him to. He wasn’t Schlatt! He wasn’t Wilbur!

“They gave you a few little directions to follow, a little bit of helpful advice. You’re the one who went too far, who exiled their own best friend, who disregarded their cabinet’s advice, who abandoned him to die.”

Tubbo’s blood ran cold. “To die? What do you mean, Dream? What did you do to Tommy?”

“I think the better question is what did _you_ do to him?”

_What?_

“What?” Tubbo repeated aloud.

“You’ve seen the pillar, Tubbo. You know there’s only one way down from a climb like that. Who do you think was the one who pushed him to that?” Oh, how he hated the false sweetness in Dream’s voice, the barely-faked sympathy. It was a thin veneer to cover the satisfaction he could hear. Tubbo hated even more how much it was working – his heart was racing, blood pumping like a drumbeat to accompany the ringing in his ears reaching a crescendo.

He tried to justify himself, though the note of fear that wobbled his voice was plain to see for both of them. “I was only trying to do what’s best for L’Manberg! You were the one who wanted him exiled!”

“And you were the one who went along with it so beautifully. And as much as you like to point fingers at me, I did visit him. Every day. You never saw him once.”

“No, no, I thought he didn’t want to see me! And I – I was on my way to see him when I saw… when I saw…”

“Too little, too late, Tubbo. I’ll leave you to sit and think on that. It’s not like you’re going to have anything better to do.”

Finished with his declaration, Dream retreated to the door, walking outside and raising his hand to the side. It looked like it was hovering over a button, though Tubbo couldn’t see from his angle, rooted to his seat by the shock to his system. The blue-white light cast long, harsh shadows from the angles on Dream’s face.

“But, Tubbo, if I was you?” Dream used his other hand to shift his mask back into place, sliding the porcelain and fastening over his head to hide his face once again. He pressed the button, and the door began slowly descending. His next sentence, though spoken quietly, cut through the still air of Tubbo’s cell with all the explosive force of the fireworks that had scarred Tubbo and taken one of his lives. It struck him in the chest just like the rockets had, too. The door finished its descent right after, a feeling of finality permeating the pitch-black room.

“I certainly would know where to place the blame.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I present the ending I had for this in my notes (I just left it out bc this felt like a natural ending point):  
> Ends with Tubbo super sad and all  
> [Tempted to pull a “fling yourself onto the bed and cry” like a Disney princess except there’s no bed to fling himself onto, only concrete and sadness]
> 
> Additionally, I may have suddenly had a flash of inspiration/possibility.
> 
> I have had an idea for an alternate direction this fic could take - an angstier one.
> 
> Would you all prefer the original plan for the h/c, the angstier plan, or some way in which I write out an alternate ending as a separate work and post both? (I feel like you'll say both, but that's just a theory - a GAME THEORY) (if so, which would you prefer I post on the og fic?)


	3. The Repentance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lights in the darkness, stars in the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I apologize for the late update.  
> In my defense, the whole site was down because Heat Waves.  
> That's all I've got, that's my only excuse.
> 
> This fandom wields too much power. I fear you all and your collective power.

Black.

The kind of pure, dark, formless black that calls you and terrifies you in turn.

With absolutely no light anywhere, Tubbo stumbled aimlessly through his void of a cell, navigating by feel alone. He hung onto the walls like a lifeline; they were the only landmark he had, and he felt so weak that he needed them as a crutch anyway.

It wasn’t a normal sort of weakness, either. It wasn’t like Tubbo was recovering from a major injury or sick in any way that he could tell. He just felt slow and drained. To his groggy, foggy mind, it was a mystery that took him far too long to solve. Only after he spent time thinking about Sam and Dream’s claim that this was his creation did he remember the Ocean Drain project, which then brought to mind all the guardians that he’d encountered there. An elder guardian; that had to be the source of his issue.

While it was helpful for him to know, it didn’t do much to help Tubbo escape. He had literally nothing to work with. His slab to sleep on was firmly attached to the wall, his bathroom was nothing more than a hole in the floor he’d have no hope of fitting through, and he didn’t have any resources to chip away at the thick obsidian with. Even if he did, the guardian-induced weakness would make such a task a days-long effort. With nothing but his nails, there wasn’t a chance.

Not to say that Tubbo hadn’t tried, though. Quite the opposite, in fact. In an effort to distract his mind from his rapidly spiraling thoughts, Tubbo had clawed at the walls as best he could. First, his hands, until his fingertips were bruised and bloody and his nails were worn down to the quick, ragged and cracked. Then he tried his feet; the method was flawed to begin with, but he kept trying until the cramps had him curling up onto the floor and doing his best not to scream. He tried his teeth once, twice, but when he felt a sharp and sudden pain on his front tooth he stopped. And if there was a hard piece of something in his mouth after that and a rough edge to a tooth, well, he didn’t like to think about it.

His only entertainment option had been attempting to escape. There was nothing else in the dark nothingness of his cell. But with all his limbs incapacitated, and simply sitting up from his slab getting tougher by the day, Tubbo started thinking.

Oh, how that was a mistake.

At first, Tubbo had tried to remember happier times. As he munched away at the occasional bits of food deposited into his cell by a redstone mechanism he didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out, he thought back to L’Manberg, to his times with his friends. The blank blackness might work as a movie theater to project on, he reasoned. Maybe he could visualize them, or something. _Worth a try._

But as he remembered the good times in L’Manberg, the images grainy and faded like old film reels, Tubbo realized just how tainted they all were. _All of them, every single one, goes back to Tommy. But Tommy’s dead now. And it’s my fault._

Suddenly those good times weren’t so good anymore. His mind, without his consent, kept replaying them, and Tubbo was forced to look at them on an endless loop. All he could think about was Tommy, how happy he’d looked, and how far Tubbo had pushed him to fall. _How far back did the influence spread? How early on did I fail as a friend? Did it start with the exile, or was it earlier?_ The questions echoed around Tubbo’s head, flying over his memories and turning their sepia-tone to a dimmer, darker grey.

“Okay, that’s not a good idea,” Tubbo spoke hoarsely to the walls.

He’d been starved for so long. The scraps of food he received were far too little far too rarely to properly feed the growing teenage boy. Tubbo’s stomach had long since stopped rumbling, instead squeezing itself tight in his abdomen. Occasionally Tubbo would twist wrong and the pain would return in full force, but if he stayed still enough, he was fine. It was fine. Just another reason to lie on his bed without moving. He was fine.

But more than just food, he was starved for interaction. His scratchy, gritty voice went unused for long stretches at a time. Without anybody to talk to, Tubbo just forgot to talk at all. He missed touch. He missed the casual pats on the shoulder he’d get from Fundy. He missed the playful roughhousing he’d get into with Quackity. He missed the gentle nudges back and forth between himself and Ranboo. He missed, most of all, the flying tackle-hugs he’d get from Tommy. Tubbo knew, though, that of all the contact he missed, Tommy’s was the only one he was guaranteed to never get back. Even if his friends got him out – and Tubbo didn’t doubt they would – Tommy was gone forever. And it was Tubbo’s fault.

A voice – _a voice!_ – shocked Tubbo from his morbidly spiraling thoughts. He didn’t know how long he’d been staring unblinkingly into the darkness – it was hard to keep track of time in an eternally dark prison – but he was absolutely certain he hadn’t missed anybody entering. The silence was too constant; Tubbo would’ve noticed the change, he was sure.

He wasn’t in a state to question it, though. It was a voice! Someone else! Someone familiar, too! Someone had noticed that he was gone, and they’d come to rescue him!

With a few too many huffs of exertion, Tubbo pushed himself upright. Wobbling on unsteady and unused feet, he leaned one hand on the wall and faced his rescuer. Or, at least where he thought they’d be, considering the darkness.

To his surprise, though, he could see him – for it was indeed a him – perfectly. Bright like a beacon, Tommy stood there in all his former glory. His revolutionary uniform was pristine and polished, his hat sat jauntily atop his blond hair, and he looked unbattered by all the things the two boys had seen. Compared to Tubbo, who was an unkempt, unwashed mess of unknown degrees, Tommy was like an angel.

“Tommy?” Tubbo called hoarsely, his voice weak and dim. Despite this, though, he was beaming like he hadn’t in weeks. His cheeks hurt from the feeling, a welcome ache. “You – you’re _alive_? I – I’m so glad you’re okay! You’re okay! I thought you’d died!”

“I did.”

Tubbo’s smile dropped in an instant.

“Come on, Tubbo, look at me. You really thought we could go back to this?” He gestured at himself, his clothes, his unlined and unworried face. “The glory days are gone, Tubbo. They’ve been gone for ages, but you were too fucking blind to let it go. You clung and you clung to them, just like you clung to me, and look what it got you. You lost everything you held onto. What does that say about you, Tubbo? Huh?”

“I – Tommy, no! Tommy, I never wanted this to happen!”

“WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT YOU? ANSWER THE GODDAMN QUESTION!”

Tubbo didn’t respond. What could he say? What was he supposed to say? He’d been so hopeful, so happy, for just a split second. But in an instant, it was all ripped away from him. Tommy’s image, which had seemed so bright and golden when Tubbo first saw it, looked as though it were dimming. Just like the film reel in Tubbo’s head, he was distorting and growing greyer. The darkness of Tubbo’s cell seemed to eat away at his edges.

“Fine. If you won’t answer me, I’ll tell you. You already know it anyway, don’t you, Tubbo? Yeah, I can see it. You know.” The image flickered for a split second. Tubbo reached out on instinct, desperate to keep whatever he had left of Tommy with him, but the ghost was back in an instant. It didn’t move closer to Tubbo, not like Dream had, but its eyes bored into him with the same intensity.

“It says that you’re the problem, Tubbo. You’re the common denominator here, after all. If everything you hold onto falls apart and dies, then it must be your fault. It’s just how the math works, after all. Really, it’s so simple, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out earlier. _It’s all your fault, Tubbo_. L’Manberg, our people, me, everything goes back to you fucking everything up and refusing to see what’s in front of your eyes and being so terrible that we all would rather _break_ than be with you. It’s _your_ fault I’m dead, Tubbo. Nobody’s but yours. How could you do this to me? How could you be this heartless and cruel? Even _Dream_ was better to me than you. He made a better best friend than you ever were. It’s all your fault Tubbo. You killed me. You may not have pulled the trigger but you sure as hell held the gun to my head. You killed me. You killed me. _You killed me._ ”

“No, no,” Tubbo denied. He reached out to Tommy, but as he stumbled raggedly from the wall and his fingertips brushed the torn-paper edges of the image, it disappeared abruptly, as if it’d never been there at all. Tubbo was stuck in the infinite darkness of his cell again, his mind equally dark as he collapsed to the floor. He wasn’t sure what he’d seen, but it couldn’t have been real. Surely not. Tommy would never say those things, dead or alive! _Wouldn’t he?_

Fat tears dripped down his cheeks. Tubbo didn’t bother wiping them. Who would be there to see them, anyway?

Time flew past. Or, at least, Tubbo assumed it did. He wasn’t sure anymore.

The images kept coming. Bright, golden figures of people he once knew, dead and alive, who would spit at him, would tell him everything wrong with him, would show him he’d never been wanted in the first place, as the gold bled away into grey before they disappeared just like that first image of Tommy had.

One by one they would fade into existence, ready to torment Tubbo in his cage.

Quackity would show up in his blood-soaked apron, his eyes far duller than the rest of him. He would pace around Tubbo, circling like a predator as he ranted. “You let L’Manberg down. You let _me_ down. I put my faith in you to lead our country, to do better than Schlatt. But now look what you’ve done to us!”

Tubbo cringed away from him every time, though he couldn’t help but look at him, as desperate to see other people as he was.

Fundy appeared in his Dreamon Hunting uniform, holding a thick tome and brandishing it towards Tubbo as if it would protect him. “You’ve changed, and not for the better,” he would say. “You’re a monster, just like the ones you taught me to hunt. If I need to use it against you, then I will, and I won’t hesitate. Not anymore.” His eyes were hard, resolute, not a hint of regret or sadness in them.

The book, the one Tubbo had given him when he first started teaching Fundy, burned his eyes to look at. Tubbo wasn’t sure if it was a trick of his tired mind or a sign that there was something wrong with him.

Ranboo, his head covered in a hat, would pop up occasionally. Though his darker half was nearly invisible in the dark of Tubbo’s prison, creating an unnerving effect of only seeing half a person, his voice was painful in its confused betrayal. “I thought you were my friend, too. Why – why would you do this? Why would you hurt us like this?”

Tubbo never knew how to respond to Ranboo. He just looked at the taller teen, watching his heartbroken face, before Ranboo just disappeared as suddenly as he’d come.

Niki, who Tubbo hadn’t seen in so long, would show up silently. She’d never say a word. All she would do was stare at Tubbo with tears in her eyes before shaking her head and turning and disappearing.

That one hurt a lot. He never had been able to take Niki’s disappointment.

More than just his friends, though, larger figures in Tubbo’s life flew in and out of his mind, vivid representations flitting into his cell. Faster and faster, until Tubbo was only catching glimpses of their lights as they whispered at him, as they yelled at him.

Eret, who he’d looked up to so much before his betrayal.

“You’re the real traitor here, Tubbo.”

Technoblade, the man who’d killed him, and yet still Tubbo had forgiven him.

“You’re a tyrant, Tubbo. Power corrupts, and, well. Look what you’ve done with it.”

Phil, his adoptive father who’d rescued him from a box on the side of the road.

“You thought you were ever a part of this family? _Really_?”

Schlatt, the tyrant that had executed him, and yet people still thought that Tubbo was just him in miniature.

“You’re just like me, kid. You hate me, but you’re just another in a long line. I told you this country would die with me, and you’ve done a better job carrying it to its grave than I ever could’ve hoped.”

Wilbur, his leader that he’d followed through war and risked his life for, a man who was supposed to have been his brother.

“This is what was always supposed to happen. Why do you think I made you president? Because I actually thought you could _do_ it? No, Tubbo, I made you President because you’re just like me. L’Manberg will go up in flames just like I wanted it to, and it’ll be because of you.”

Despite having long since stopped moving, simply staying collapsed on his cot in the dark, Tubbo felt like the world was spinning. He didn’t know where anything was, he didn’t know where _he_ was, hell, he didn’t even know what was real anymore.

All that was left were the voices and the shouting and the angry glares and the disappointment and the resentment and the abandonment and the blame and the blame and the blame and _it was all my fault it was all my fault allofitallmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfault._

Through it all, Tommy kept appearing, bright but dimming in the center of Tubbo’s vision. His uniform had long since been traded for a ragged and torn copy of his everyday outfit. The white of his shirt was practically beige with dirt, the red faded. Holes were everywhere in his clothes, threads dangling limply. He had no shoes, just bare feet like Tubbo. Deep bags sat under his eyes.

Honestly, Tubbo thought they made quite the pair. The dead men, one long gone and the other soon on his way.

He couldn’t tell when he was awake or asleep anymore. It was all the same either way: pitch black broken by memories of the people he knew – he’d long since lost the right to call them his friends – returning to berate him for everything he’d ever done.

If this was hell, Tubbo understood why people were so afraid of it. But he was far more afraid that this was real, that this was the life he’d been condemned to.

At this point, he would even take Dream coming in. If anything, he was desperate for a visit. A confirmation that he was still real, still alive.

Dream never came.

Tubbo was alone with the memories.

Tommy appeared, shining and golden like Tubbo wished they could still be. He opened his mouth to start yelling again. Tubbo covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

It didn’t help.

It never did.

They were all in his head, products of his darkened, traitorous mind. He couldn’t block them out if he tried.

As Tommy began accusing Tubbo again, Tubbo shook apart and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, hope you survived intact.
> 
> Love all of you, hope you're all doing well! Take care of yourselves!
> 
> (let's start a hand-holding chain to survive the festival that I'm posting this 30 minutes before) (yikes)


	4. The Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's springtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! I'm back!
> 
> I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to take two months before updating this, but that's what I get for throwing myself into my other fic to finish that then suddenly having another job show up.  
> But it's here! It's done!
> 
> So, without further ado, here we are.

It was springtime.

A dim morning, the sky grey and colorless.

Bees abuzz, hopping from budding flower to budding flower.

A few nose-wrinkling rabbits poking their heads up from their wintry warrens.

It was springtime, and Dream wanted a meeting.

The request had come out of nowhere after ages of radio silence from the mysterious man.

Nobody knew what to make of it.

None refused it, but neither did they know what to expect.

It was springtime, and Dream wanted a meeting, and so there Tommy stood, backed by the other members of the server, shivering in his thin shirt.

Tommy had grown tall in these years, standing at the full six foot three he’d always claimed he was as a teenager. He’d filled out some. The combination of the healthier relationship he had with Sam and Puffy and far fewer threats of war looming over their heads had been kind to him. Who knew?

Though he’d aged over the past eight years, there were still bits and pieces that were unmistakably Tommy. His iconic red and white style, for one, though the t-shirt had long since been exchanged for a scarlet top over a white undershirt. Two instead of one, quite the change, he was aware.

For another Tommy-ism that hadn’t gone away, or rather, that he’d regain after a not-insignificant period of healing, was his loud mouth. One that was currently operating at full capacity.

“Alright Dream, you green bitch, why the fuck did you call us out here at ass o’clock in the morning? I have better things to be doing, you know. Like sleeping. And dreaming of women. So many women. You couldn’t even comprehend how many women.”

Yes, Tommy was still fundamentally Tommy. Exile may have changed him, all those years ago, made him wary and suspicious, but at his heart, he was still an optimistic guy with a sense of humor that eternally kept him running his mouth.

“I’m with Tommy, for once,” Quackity called. “Why the fuck are we here, Dream? What did you want to show us that was so important that it finally got you talking to us again?”

Dream was the same as ever. Still an enigma hidden behind a simple white mask, still in the same outfit, still as topsy-turvy with his words. “Well, Tommy, you see, I thought it’d be fun to show you a little something. A nice project.”

Tommy snorted loudly. “Not much you do could be considered ‘nice,’ Dream. Don’t try to hide it.”

Dream shrugged genially, turning around and retreating into the forest that surrounded them all. The early morning mist quickly hid him from their sight.

“Great,” Puffy snorted. “Don’t know where he was going with that one.”

“It’s like he’s being this dramatic on purpose,” Fundy agreed.

From a stray limb above Fundy, Dream swung down in front of the fox, tilting his head as he looked at the fox hybrid from upside-down. Fundy yelped. “Are you coming?”

“You could’ve just said so, Dream,” Sapnap huffed. It didn’t take much for the party, practically the whole server, to follow in the masked man’s wake.

As Dream dropped down from the branch and deftly led the group into the woods, fog swirling around his feet and snaking tendrils towards the edges of the pack. Tommy, from his position mostly at the center, watched Sam, Niki, and Techno bat the eerily animated mist away.

It would have been fitting, Tommy thought, if there were dead autumn leaves to crunch under their feet as they walked. But there were none. Instead, it was far too quiet. The grass muffled their footsteps and the uncertainty of what they were about to see kept voices to dull murmurs.

Tommy wanted to shout and scream and make noise just to fill that void, but the quiet felt like a tenuous spell he was hesitant to break.

So Tommy kept his mouth shut.

The dim grey light began shuttering more and more as they trudged deeper into the forest. Dapples of illumination fell upon the dew-speckled grass. Occasional sprouts of flowers, barely tipped with shy color, poked their heads up through the underbrush.

Despite the lack of a clear path, Dream was sure-footed and collected, never hesitating for a moment in his navigation.

“Where do you think he’s taking us?” Ranboo whispered, leaning down slightly to reach Tommy’s ear.

“No idea, big man. It’s Dream.” Tommy huffed slightly. “When does anybody know what he’s thinking?”

The enderman hybrid just hummed in response, stepping fluidly over a thick oak root. He fiddled with his coat sleeves and didn’t say a word more.

Tommy took a quick glance over his shoulder to see Hbomb trying to get Eret’s attention, the taller of the two striding with grace and poise as H scrambled to follow him. Fundy seemed happy to no longer be the target of H’s antics. At least someone was finding some small amount of joy in the foreboding situation they were walking straight into.

As Dream moved one dense branch aside, the forest suddenly broke, leaving an opening onto an outcropping overlooking an ominous structure across the bay. It was tall and wide, elegantly imposing, and lit with an orange glow from within.

Tommy took no happiness with the realization that he recognized it.

Pandora’s Vault, Sam’s prison that had stood unused for years, was just a short boat ride away, and Tommy still had no idea of what Dream wanted.

Just the position he loved to be in.

Great.

The masked man brushed a bit of bush away to reveal a steep and twisting path downwards, sloping around the cliff and down to the beach. If Tommy squinted, he could pick out the small dots of bobbing boats. A trip across the bay, then. Dream was taking them directly to Sam’s prison. Once again, Tommy wondered exactly what his plan was.

What ‘surprise’ awaited them in a prison, of all places?

_Tubbo would probably have a guess._

Tommy batted away the errant thought. It’d been eight years since he’d last seen Tubbo, since anybody had seen the then-president. He had accepted that Tubbo was most likely dead. They’d all mourned quietly and moved on as best they could, even as so many things felt different, hollower.

Sure, in those years the server had simmered down, the tectonic plates of factions and beliefs ending their earthquakes and shifting into place. L’Manberg was dead, and though a small part of Tommy would always be that bright-eyed boy singing the national anthem with pride on his face and a jeer ready to toss his enemy’s way, he’d accepted that loss. Moving on from a country was different from moving on from a person, after all.

He thought he’d been making better progress in moving forward, but Tommy supposed that when a person was that close to you, their influence never quite went away.

Still, now was not the time to let his mind wander to Tubbo. He needed to be sharp, to be prepared for what Dream had in store.

He knew from firsthand experience just how terrible anything Dream presented could be, even if under the veneer of friendship. The meandering words and immediately dominant role Dream had taken were familiar in a terrible way.

There were very few people Tommy had told the full story of exile to, even so far past it, but they were casting occasional concerned looks his way. The blond caught Sam’s eye and shook his head slightly. He’d be fine; he could handle whatever Dream had in mind. This was far from the worst thing he’d experienced, and it would take quite the trump card from the tyrant to fling Tommy back to his state in exile.

Together, the group trudged their way down the path.

And if Sapnap stumbled slightly, an old injury acting up, well then Phil was there to help catch him.

They arrived at the neat line of boats, sand immediately riding its way into Tommy’s shoes. He kept walking onwards with a grimace.

Dream stepped into the middlemost boat and gestured magnanimously for Tommy to join him. Without hesitation, the youngest of the group turned to Ranboo and asked, “Hey, you obnoxiously tall man, wanna ride with me?”

Sensing the escape route that it was, Ranboo shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

People paired up quickly, hopping into boats with a mild sense of urgency. Their destination was within sight, after all. Nobody particularly wanted to linger around Dream for longer than they had to.

The big man himself was left alone in his dinghy, rocking by himself as everyone else settled in with their partners. If that wasn’t fitting, Tommy didn’t know what was.

Together, the group rowed their way across the bay.

And if Ranboo flinched away from the spray, still so very sensitive to water, well then Eret was nearby to extend his cloak to shield him.

They landed without much ceremony, the small ships running aground on the far rockier beach next to the prison.

Already the foreboding air of it all laid heavily over them all. Quackity visibly shivered, Purpled drew his hood over his head, and Niki fidgeted with her shirtsleeves. Tommy, never one to be cowed by a simple building, much less the almost abandoned one his pseudo-father had built, stepped forward boldly. “You really brought us in a big circle for this? Dream, we see it like every day. This is nothing. A pretty shitty surprise, if you ask me, bitch.”

Dream just hummed slightly as he tucked his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. If it wasn’t the very same one he’d worn since before Tommy’s arrival here, he’d eat his sock. And they were some pretty gross socks.

“I’m not sure what your goal was here, Dream,” Sam commented mildly. “We haven’t properly used this prison since it was built. Nobody’s gone to jail. If anything, you’re the only one who ever goes in anymore.”

“Mhm.”

Techno eyed Dream suspiciously. “You know something we don’t, don’t you? You wouldn’t bring us here for no reason. There’s a point you’re working towards.” He stepped closer to Dream, unslinging a crossbow from his back to hold casually at his side. A threat. “What is it?”

“There’s someone in there, isn’t there?”

All eyes turned to Ranboo. Despite the years of growth, he was still uneasy with so much attention on him – a mixture of enderman traits and natural anxiety. The hybrid kept going, though. “It’s a prison, and Dream likes control. Why wouldn’t he use the perfect place to keep someone under his thumb?”

“That doesn’t make sense, though. If there was somebody in the prison, I would have to know. I’m the Warden!”

“You already said that he goes in and out even if you don’t. He could very easily just do what he wants and not tell you.”

Tommy huffed. “See, you’re all sitting here and talking when you’re forgetting the most important thing.” He unsheathed the Axe of Peace and held the blade to Dream’s neck. “Who’s in there, you green bitch?”

Dream didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Not that Tommy had been expecting him to, but still. Disappointing.

Without shifting the deadly weapon from his neck, he replied steadily, “Well, you’ll just have to come along and find out.”

He couldn’t do anything but grit his teeth and accept it. Who knew what poor sod was stuck in there? Was it a new person that hadn’t been allowed to see the light of day? A villager with a particularly nice trade? Or was it something far, far worse?

The prison had been there, presumably unused, for quite a while.

That was plenty of time for Dream to do whatever he wanted with it.

They didn’t know anything, and Tommy hated it.

Pandora’s Vault, when they entered, was both more and less intimidating than Tommy had imagined. He’d never been inside, after all; nobody had. To be honest, he’d expected more security measures, more grim-faced guards and clear defenses keeping things inside and out. But when Dream guided them through, there were next to no security checks. They just walked inside, most of them very armed, without a single hitch. Though, if the prison was unused, it made sense that Sam wouldn’t have bothered just standing there day after day for nothing.

Still, there was something eerie about it all. The cobwebs dusting the corners and the slightly worn path that Dream had taken over and over these past years. The faintly flickering lantern lights that cast long shadows across the walls. The long, dim hallways of pure blackstone. The creaking sound of underused machinery.

Tommy liked to say that he was fairly comfortable with himself and his emotions. You didn’t just leave years of therapy without being forced to confront them, after all.

And right now, he was not afraid to admit that he was just a bit unnerved. Off-put, if you will. Mildly uncomfortable.

In a move that was very Tommy-of-his-teenage-years coupled with his healthier internal growth, he looked at those feelings, acknowledged them, then completely buried them and moved on.

They had work to do, after all, and Tommy wasn’t about to let his scaredy-cat emotions prevent him from taking part.

Deeper into the depths of the prison they went, and as the entrance twisted further and further behind them, Tommy shivered slightly. Was it just him, or were the sweeping ceilings not quite so high? Was the corridor always this narrow?

Punz knocked into his shoulder.

It was done in such an offhand, casual way that it could seem like an accident caused by Tommy’s sudden slowness and Punz’s impatience. But nothing Punz did was on accident. As Punz looked back, ostensibly to glare at him for getting in his way, Tommy caught his eye and nodded, smiling slightly. A thank you.

The former mercenary nodded back.

Steeling himself, Tommy pushed forward.

Dream led them into the dark confines of the prison, his gait never faltering, his gaze never wavering. He led them past a wall of traditional cells, going further. He led them past a corridor of water, going deeper.

Eventually, he stopped at a wall.

Just.

A wall.

“Um, Dream?” Sapnap asked. “You good, man? Like, is this what you wanted to show us? A wall?”

For once, Tommy consciously missed Tubbo. Because if his best friend were here, Tommy would’ve twirled his finger around near his ear and Tubbo would’ve held back a giggle because _this is serious, Tommy, come on_ and it would’ve been the stupid kind of nice thing they did when they were kids.

But Tubbo wasn’t here anymore, and Tommy was all grown up, so he stayed still and waited to see what Dream had in store for them.

It turned out that Dream hadn’t lost it after all, because the masked man pushed on a button that nobody had spotted beforehand, the material patterned to blend into the wall. Suddenly, a rumbling permeated the air, echoing in Tommy’s chest.

The wall they’d stopped at started pulling away into the ceiling.

The faint yellow light of the hallway began filtering into the completely dark room that was behind it.

A small yelp could be heard from within.

As the wall completed its ascent, Tommy could make out the vague figure of someone curled up on a small ledge, presumably what passed for a bed in here.

They were turned away from the door and the light, and as Dream strode inside, they curled tighter. Hiding.

Dream, though, clearly didn’t care, as he growled something at them and pulled them off the ledge. They cried out again as they hit the floor, their arms shielding their face and shoulders hunched up to their ears. It was a pitiful thing, small and hopeless and raspy. Like they’d barely had the strength to voice it.

Tommy’s heart lurched and tugged him a step forward.

Sam went far further than a single step, rushing in to get between Dream and the prisoner. “Dream, Dream, come on, man! This is – this is just inhumane!” The creeper hybrid kept one pacifying hand pointed towards Dream while he reached another towards the person on the floor. His eyes never once left Dream’s mask, locked in a staring contest without any knowledge of who was winning.

Tommy’s focus, though, moved to the prisoner. The prisoner who had tentatively pushed their fingers apart to peer through them. To stare at Sam’s gentle hand on their shoulder.

He may not have been able to see their expression with how they’d hidden it behind their hands, but he could guess at what they were feeling. They didn’t know how long they’d been in there for, but Tommy could easily compare it to the first time he’d been hugged after exile. That incredulous feeling of being touched in a way that wasn’t intended to hurt, the way that it almost hurt more because there was always that fear-fueled anticipation of it turning sour.

Tommy watched them shudder. Their indecision of whether to lean into the contact or move away was written in the defensive lines of their body. He made a choice.

Leaving the rest of the people behind to gawk at the horrible scene in front of them, Tommy walked over to the prisoner. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Those too-wide eyes flicked over to Tommy and then widened further. They started making a gravelly noise, their whole worryingly skinny body shaking. It took Tommy too long to realize that it was laughter, the painful, broken kind.

Finally, their hands moved away from their face, and Tommy felt a spark of recognition, though only barely.

The prisoner was male, that much was apparent now, and far too much of their face was sunken in and grey. Tommy could practically trace the lines of his veins, standing out far too starkly against the rest of his anatomy. His hair was overgrown and matted, a brown color that had lost much of its richness beneath the tangles and dirt. It looked stiff to the touch, practically one solid mass. His nose was bent out of place, a break left permanently unhealed, and Tommy worried that it hurt this poor man to breathe.

His eyes, though, his eyes.

They were far too wide and clear, yet still off. His pupils never quite seemed to focus, dilating and contracting in no pattern that Tommy could detect. Tears built up around the edges, yet they seemed to be less from sadness and more from the unblinking gaze. The skin around them was so sunken that they practically bulged from their sockets, and yet the emotion Tommy saw in them contradicted that weakened appearance so much he nearly stumbled back.

He wasn’t quite sure how to describe the look. It was like a desert wanderer finally finding an oasis and greedily quenching their thirst, yet at the same time knowing the water was poisoned and continuing regardless. It was conscious self-destruction and it _burned_.

Those eyes stared at Tommy, raking him up and down, and the blond felt so unbearably _seen_.

The gravelly laughter didn’t stop.

“It – it _hurts_ ,” he rasped between raggedy giggles.

“What hurts?” Tommy asked.

“L-light. Hand. You. Eyes.”

“Alright man, alright. How can I help?”

“Can’t.” A hoarse laugh descended into the beginnings of a sob. “Just have to wait for you to go away.” He started coughing, a spasm that wracked his whole body.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“Yes.” A laugh-sob. “No.” Another. “Not sure.”

“That’s not much of an answer, man.”

The prisoner never moved his eyes from Tommy. “I never did understand it.”

Sam broke the moment, calling out accusingly, “Dream, what the hell is this. _Who_ the hell is this?”

And that’s when the admin started laughing. Not his well-known and iconic wheeze. It was a malicious cackle, full of arrogance and superiority and the knowledge that he’d won at a game nobody else had known they were playing.

“Dream!” George yelled, perhaps hoping to get through to his old friend.

The masked man kept going, tilting his head back from the force of his humor. “You – you mean – you don’t _recognize_ him?”

From his position as the focus of the prisoner’s unerring gaze, Tommy whipped his head around. “Recognize him? What?”

“They normally don’t last this long,” said prisoner remarked wonderingly. “Huh.”

“What doesn’t last?” As all this went on, Tommy felt as if he were only gaining more questions and no answers. “Please, big man, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“They’re nicer than usual, too. He used to call me that.”

“He?”

“Tommy.”

And with that, Dream’s surprise was revealed.

As the admin laughed maniacally, the sound reverberating around the cell like the rolling call of thunder, Tommy finally realized where that spark of familiarity came from. Those bright eyes, framed in a gaunt face eight years older, _fuck_ , Tommy was kicking himself about not realizing it earlier.

“Of course, he’s dead now.” Tubbo, _because this was Tubbo, this was his best friend, alive after so long when nobody had thought to search the world right in front of them_ , was getting quieter now. His own laughter had died off, leaving only Dream’s. Instead, Tubbo’s voice was giving out, coming out so faint and shredded that it was inches from unintelligible.

Tommy wanted to cry. “But – Tubbo, I’m right here,” he whispered brokenly.

“No, you’re not.”

“I am! I am, I promise.”

Tubbo shook his head slightly. “I killed you.”

And Tommy’s heart shattered completely.

From behind him, he heard somebody murmur, “Is that Tubbo?”

“No way.”

“I thought he died!”

“Is this where he’s been?”

“Oh god, we left him in here for years!”

“Shit, man.”

Tubbo finally shifted his gaze away from Tommy, instead looking around the assembly of people, all the people he hadn’t seen in so long. “You all aren’t normally together. It’s one of you at a time. And you always yell at me.”

“Tubbo,” Tommy whispered, on the verge of tears, “we’d never yell at you.”

“Well, you don’t always,” he amended quietly. “But you’re all sad or mad or disappointed.”

“Can I – can I touch you?”

That got a reaction out of Tubbo. “No, no, please, no!” He pushed himself upright, scrabbling against the wall. “Don’t!”

“Okay, okay, I won’t.” God, he was trying so hard to be gentle, but his chest ached at the sight of his best friend in the position of a scared animal. “Do you mind me asking why not?”

Letting silent tears flow down his face, their tracks clear against the dust on his washed-out face, Tubbo answered, “Because then you’ll disappear. And this is the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had.” He buried his head in his hands, pulling his knees in close to his chest. “I don’t want it to end. I want to sleep forever like this.”

“But Tubbo, this isn’t a dream.”

“I mean, I know it’s not. I know I’m awake. But it doesn’t matter. Awake or asleep, you’re still not real.” He looked over to Dream, the only one unaffected by the scene in front of them. “It’s almost over, isn’t it? I can feel it, Dream. I held out this long.” Against all odds, he smiled. “I’m glad that my mind is kind to me now.”

“No, no, Tubbo, don’t talk like that big man, please, Tubbo.”

“The world isn’t supposed to spin like this, I don’t think.”

“SAM!” Tommy yelled, turning away from his friend, his hands held mere inches from Tubbo by sheer willpower. “SAM, HELP!”

“You can’t help him, Tommy. Why do you think I brought you here now?”

“You – you BASTARD!” Tubbo flinched, and Tommy suddenly felt like the worst person in the world. “No, no, Tubbo, I wasn’t talking about you, I promise-”

“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. It’s nothing that’s not true.” He grimaced, then gasped slightly, chest heaving for air.

“Tubbo?”

“Tick, tock, Tommy, say your goodbyes.”

For once, in a move that he wasn’t sure he’d regret, Tommy listened to Dream. As Tubbo slid down the wall, his knees unable to support his thin frame, Tommy leaned forward.

And as his hands made contact with Tubbo’s, the prisoner cried out, then fell silent.

A moment passed.

Two.

And then Tubbo gripped his hands back, tighter and tighter, with a strength that by all means shouldn’t have been there, and though Tommy could feel the strain on his bones, he didn’t dare let go.

“Tommy?” Tubbo breathed.

Smiling through the fat tears dripping down his face, Tommy replied, “Yeah. It’s me. I missed you.”

“You – I can touch you.”

“Yeah.”

“Am I dead yet?”

Tommy shook his head. “No, no you’re not. I promise.”

“Then-”

“I’m not dead either, Big T.”

Like he was afraid of the answer, Tubbo asked, “How long has it been?”

A shuddering inhale. Then, an answer: “Eight years.”

“I didn’t think I’d make it that long.”

Tommy heard someone sob behind him. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the feeling of Tubbo’s cold, cold fingers in his. What mattered was the soft, rattling sound of Tubbo’s breath. What mattered was the sight of his best friend, finally back in his arms. “But you did.” He was smiling, smiling so hard it hurt, and yet he felt like breaking in two. His voice wobbled. “I’m so proud.”

“Tommy, I’m tired.”

“I know, I know. But you’ve got to hold on, Tubbo, okay?”

“I’ve gotten what I want, Tommy. I got to feel you again. I got to hear you say things that were nice. I got to see you all grown up.”

“But we missed all the years in between, Tubbo. Don’t you want more time?” Tommy’s voice was moments from breaking into full sobs, but he held it tight in an iron grip and told it to hold out a little bit longer.

Tubbo’s hand reached out to cup Tommy’s face, wonderingly tracing the bumps and ridges he’d acquired over the years. Tommy smiled into it and did his best to keep it together at the sensation of Tubbo’s skeletal fingers. “This is already more time than I ever thought I’d have. That’s enough for me.”

“But what about me?” Tommy’s voice finally cracked.

“You’ve made it this far without me. Keep on living, Tommy.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“Sure, it won’t be. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be bad.”

Tubbo slumped further down and Tommy, trying so hard to be gentle, maneuvered him into his lap.

“I used to be so scared every day, Tommy. I would scream and cry and break down and forget that I was the one making all the noise. But now I’m not scared anymore. My wildest dream just came true.”

“Tubbo, you’re _dying_.”

“You’re okay. That’s all I need to know.”

Tubbo’s hand went limp. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to accept it. “I just got you back. Why did you have to go?”

He allowed himself one, two, three moments to just sit there, Tubbo’s head in his lap, and let the tears flow. They dripped heavily down his face, collecting on his nose and chin before falling like rain onto Tubbo’s face. Their trails mixed in with Tubbo’s own tear tracks until Tommy couldn’t tell which marks were from his tears of grief or Tubbo’s tears of hope. It didn’t matter. In the end, neither could do anything to bring Tubbo back.

Then, having let enough tears fall, Tommy ever-so-gently moved Tubbo’s head from his lap onto the floor and slipped a torch from his pack. He lit it with deft hands, bringing a warm glow to the cold, dark cell.

All around him, covering every wall, were thin marks. Painstakingly chipped from the obsidian, blood marring many of them, were tally marks. Row after row, line after line, up and down the walls as far as the eye could see.

Except in one place.

There, above where Tubbo lay, carved into his ledge, were names. The lines were wobbly, many of them not even connected, but they were there.

_Wilbur_

_Schlatt_

_Phil_

_Techno_

_Eret_

_Dream_

And in the center of them all, tentative and soft compared to the harsh edges of all of those names, was one more.

_Tubbo_

Written amongst the names of the people who’d hurt him most, like it was the crown jewel of all their misdeeds.

Tommy ran his fingers back and forth over the barely legible carvings, imprinting the shapes into his memory until his fingertips bled from the sharp points of obsidian. With blood on his hands and ice in his heart, the blond marched up to Dream and snatched the white mask from his face. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation before he shattered it upon the floor.

The pure white shards made a stark contrast to the purple-black obsidian.

Then, without a word, Tommy swooped down to grab his too-light friend and walked out of the cell. He didn’t stop to see if anybody was following.

He had a feeling they were busy with a discussion with Dream,

As he finally exited Pandora’s Vault, her only prisoner held tight in his arms, he looked down at Tubbo’s thin form.

“It’s springtime, Tubbo. I wish you could see it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that Tubbo died from a heart overfilled with joy. A poetic end, if you ask me. Ties to Schlatt, has medical basis in long-term effects of isolation, and matches up with the love and joy he's feeling in his final moments.  
> Yay.
> 
> So, um.  
> This may have been the sad ending.  
> I kind of lost inspiration for the happier one I intended, so I'll sum it up for you:  
> Techno and Phil stage a prison assault, find Tubbo inside, Tubbo doesn't think they're real, they bring him to the Antarctic Empire, Tommy is there, Tommy is mad at Tubbo, Tubbo starts thinking it's a hallucination again when he sees Tommy, hurt/comfort ensues.
> 
> As you can see, that's not what happened.
> 
> Oops.

**Author's Note:**

> I'VE OFFICIALLY POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER THEREFORE IT HAS NOW BEGUN AND I MUST FINISH IT  
> REGARDLESS OF WHAT HAPPENS IN CANON NOW I HAVE SENT THIS INTO THE WORLD FIRST SO MY FEAR IS SLIGHTLY LESSENED WOOO


End file.
